


You're A Universe

by Jiksa



Series: You're A Universe [1]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Depression, Disordered Eating, Grief/Mourning, Jealousy, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Life, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Relationship Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 12:27:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11669124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiksa/pseuds/Jiksa
Summary: Harry doesn’t ever mean to hurt him; Louis doesn’t know how to tell him that it’s the only thing he ever does anymore.Or, Louis’s a stay-at-home dad in London and Harry’s a business expat in Qatar. Louis doesn’t know how much longer their marriage can survive the distance.





	You're A Universe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [H/L Yearly Fic Fest](http://hlyearlyficfest.tumblr.com/), for the prompt: "Sad kid!fic where Louis (stay-at-home dad) and Harry (business expat) are on the brink of separation for reasons up to the author." Thanks to [immoral_crow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow)/[LadySmutterella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySmutterella) for beta and britpicking, [1000_directions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000_directions) for cheerleading and helping me sort out the ending, and the mods for running a wonderful fest!
> 
>  **Warnings:** Instances of unintended pressure/misunderstandings in a sexual context between a committed couple, references to Lou’s mum and Harry’s step-dad passing, at times intense descriptions of grief/anxiety/depression, and some truly terrible Game of Thrones references.
> 
> Wondering who Elgar Johnson is? He’s a friend of Nick’s, editor of GQ Style & total BABE. Here’s [A Very Compelling Nick/Elgar Primer With Much Eye Candy](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/post/163768622989/nick-grimshawelgar-johnson-introducing-the-ss), written by yours truly, should you need it.
> 
> Translation in [polski](http://lovely-bumblebee.tumblr.com/post/167455010881/youre-a-universe-t%C5%82umaczenie) available, courtesy of the wonderful @lovely-bumblebee. Also available as a [heartbreakingly beautiful podfic by Tipsy_Kitty.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675687)

_While you are away / my heart comes undone / slowly unravels like a ball of yarn_

 

Harry’s chosen the worst fucking time imaginable to come home early from Qatar.

Never mind that the house looks like a war zone; it always does, these days. Louis’s given up trying to resist the torrent of clutter that accumulates, the mess around him worsening everytime he turns his back. The sink’s always full of dishes, the laundry baskets constantly overflowing, the toys on the floor apparently and inexplicably breeding when Louis isn’t looking. It’s about survival at this point — as long as both of the kids are still alive and in his custody at the end of the day, he’s counting it a win.

If he’s been falling asleep to crap telly most nights, unshowered and exhausted, wedged in between a mountain of unfolded laundry on the sofa and spooning a half-eaten bag of Asda Salt and Vinegar crisps — well, then no one really needs to know. Raising kids is meant to be challenging in any circumstance; raising two of them when his husband’s overseas twenty seven days a month is probably meant to feel a little moreso.

Both of the kids are bawling when Harry walks into the kitchen: Ava because she hurt herself climbing drawers after Louis expressly and _repeatedly_ asked her not to, Jack because he’s overtired and hungry but refusing to eat anything Louis feeds him. Louis’s on the verge of tears himself, exhausted and overwhelmed and rapidly nearing the end of what little rope he has left.

He doesn’t even hear Harry come in, too busy trying to soothe Ava with one hand while ensuring Jack doesn’t climb out of his high chair with the other. Jack’s screaming so hard his little face is turning red, and then he thrashes so that his bowl of porridge goes flying to the floor, splattering across Louis’s face and his last clean(ish) T-shirt.

And then Harry appears in the doorway like an answered prayer, almost a day early, surveying the disaster with a smile that suggests any of this is even remotely amusing. “Hello my loves,” he says fondly, calmer than he has any right to be, wearing a suit and a smile that crinkles the skin around his eyes. He crouches down and opens his arms wide. “Daddy’s home.”

Louis’s heart does that _thing_ it always does when Harry comes back home to him, this kamikaze hurling against the bones inside his chest, reckless and wild like it’s trying to burst out of Louis’s body and into Harry’s big, strong hands.

Christ, it’s only been three weeks since the last time he was home. It’s felt like years.

Ava tears herself out of Louis’s arms to launch herself at Harry, whimpering _daddy, daddy, daddy._ Harry picks her up and presses his big smile against her cheek, hugging her tightly and running his fingers reverently through her unruly curls. She looks _so much_ like him; it breaks Louis’s heart to look at her sometimes. “Baby, baby, baby,” he chants, kissing her temple over and over again. “How’s my best little girl?”

Louis sighs, getting himself off the floor with some effort. His bum shoulder’s been acting up again; both of their kids growing faster than his arms can keep up with. “She’s being a menace, as usual.”

Harry laughs, cupping her cheek and wiping her tears away with his thumb. His wedding ring brushes against her jaw. He’s been wearing it for almost four years already, but the sight of it still hits Louis in the stomach sometimes. “Are you gonna give your Daddy Haz a big smile?”

Louis gathers Jack out of his high chair, tucking his dummy into his screaming mouth and bouncing him in his arms. Ava gives a wet giggle, her frown already turned upside down with Harry’s cooing. He’ll never admit it out loud, but Louis is endlessly jealous of how easily she’s always settled for Harry, how she’s always looked him like he hung the moon for her alone.

She’s got Harry’s green eyes, wild and bottomless and serious. It’s been too long since either of them looked at Louis like that.

“Hello, baby boy,” Harry coos when Louis brings their son close, leaning in to press a kiss to Jack’s temple. “How’s my favourite little moonbeam?”

Jack hiccups out a sob, freezing when he meets Harry’s eyes. It takes him about a second of deliberation before he bursts into another wave of shrill sobs, kicking Louis in the stomach as he squirms to get away. “Sorry babe,” Louis sighs, stepping back to give their youngest some space. “He’s been weird with new people lately, keeps bawling every time someone looks at him at the supermarket.”

Louis hears the breath catch in Harry’s throat before he even realises what he’s said.

“I’m not new people, Lou,” Harry mutters, his voice sounding bruised. “What the hell.”

 _Shit._ Louis bounces Jack in his arms again, trying in vain to settle him. It’s an impossible endeavour; he’s been cranky and restless and miserable all day. Louis’s been thrown up on twice already and the night’s still young. “You know what I mean. He just hasn’t seen you for a while.”

Louis doesn’t know how much ten month old babies remember when their parents fuck off overseas for weeks at a time. He hasn’t had the balls to google it in case the answer is, _your baby will forget your husband ever existed after he’s been gone twenty four hours._ Harry’s gone for weeks at a time; Louis’s got enough trouble trying to remember the feel of him when he’s away. He wears Harry’s old T-shirts and unscrews the near-empty bottle of cologne Harry keeps in the bathroom, but it’s not the same.

It’s surprisingly hard to remember loving and being loved by someone when they’re far, far away in the world, reduced to blurry Skype calls and singular, frantic three-day weekend visits once a month. Everything in Louis’s world has narrowed down to this house and these kids and this rising exhaustion. Harry feels almost like a tourist after all these months away, a sun-kissed interloper stumbling back into a space that doesn’t know what to do with him anymore. When he is here, it’s a frenzied blur of activity: dinners with friends and endless drives to Cheshire, playing happy family for iPhone photos and aggressively pretending they’re both holding it together.

Each time it’s becoming slightly harder to remember how their bodies fit together, their teeth clacking around desperate, unsatisfying kisses, their hands clumsy in the dark when the kids have fallen asleep. Louis doesn’t even know why, but it’s started making him feel scared when Harry touches him sometimes, like he’s forgotten that Harry’s meant to feel good. The last time they fucked, Louis pressed his face into the pillow and tried to breathe through tears as Harry forced his way inside him. It wasn’t painful, not really, at least not like that. It just… _hurt_ , the way everything about Harry seems to hurt after all this time away.

Louis leans back against the kitchen counter, cradling a thrashing Jack against his collarbone as he tries to settle him. He exhales deeply, trying again to keep it together. Harry wasn’t due until tomorrow morning. Louis was going to be freshly showered and somewhat rested and wearing clothes that weren’t covered in vomit and porridge. He was going to leave the kids with Lottie so he could change their sheets and clean the toys off the floor and buy some fresh pastries for breakfast. He was going to be less of a let down, less of a mess, less of a failure as a husband and father and human being. “Welcome home,” he tries, his voice catching unexpectedly. “You’re early.”

Harry’s fist tightens a little in Ava’s hair, his eyes soft and sad. He leans against the doorway. The kitchen floor has never felt this vast between them, this inexplicably uncrossable. “Surprise.”

 

—

 

Harry puts Ava to bed while Louis grapples with their littlest one, Harry’s voice a low hum through the wall as he reads her stories from the big blue book she only ever lets Harry read from. It’s a blessed relief when Jack’s eyelids flutter shut and Louis can finally take a few steps back and fall heavily into bed. He hasn’t changed the sheets since the last time Harry was here, at first because they smelled like him and then because he just couldn’t find the energy.

He’s too tired to care that Harry’s come home to a mess. At least it’s honest.

He doesn’t realise he’s passed out until he feels Harry’s nose against the back of his neck, Harry’s body warm against his own, Harry’s hands pulling down his joggers. “Mmm,” Louis mutters, wiping saliva from his mouth and squinting at the red light on the alarm clock. “What’re you doing?”

“Getting you out of these,” Harry whispers, kissing behind his ear. “Into some pyjamas.”

Louis turns his head to look at him, to make sure he isn't dreaming. Harry's finally, finally _home_. “Don’t have any clean ones.”

“Shame.” Harry laughs a little, pressing his hips against Louis’s and brushing his lips against the scruff on Louis’s jaw. It’s…. nice. “Missed you so much.”

Louis sighs, that horrible achy thing in his chest twisting again. All he ever does is miss Harry. “‘M too tired to fuck.”

“I’ll do all the work,” Harry promises, sinking his teeth into the side of Louis’s neck and stroking his big hands over Louis’s torso. It’s nice, god, it’s so _nice_ , but Louis doesn’t think he’s even got the energy to get hard right now.

It’s been a long, shitty day. He had to abandon the supermarket halfway through his shop earlier when Jack threw a strop and then threw up his lunch. They’re going to run disastrously out of nappies unless someone goes to the shops first thing in the morning. Ava’s gone up a size since the last time Harry was home; he’ll have to remember to tell him. She’s also been refusing to eat anything except Weetabix for breakfast, lunch _and_ dinner. He can’t remember if he’s already told Harry; their last few Skype calls have been short and quiet and unremarkable.

“C’mon babe,” Harry prompts, reaching between Louis’s legs with an optimistic hand. “Let me make you feel good.”

Louis pushes weakly at his wrist. “So tired, Haz. Maybe tomorrow.”

Harry lets out a breath that Louis reads easily as _disappointed_ , not that Harry would ever admit he is. They fucked like rabbits before Ava, even kept the frequency up for a while after Jack was born, but it’s just died off since Harry lost his job in London and couldn’t find another one for months. This assignment in Qatar was meant as a short term solution, a few months to make sure they didn’t lose the house after they’d burnt through what little savings they had left after having the kids. What little savings they’d burnt through, and whatever they’d had to put on credit cards — Louis doesn’t even know the extent of their financial situation. All he knows is it’s been almost seven months and Harry still hasn’t been able to come home.

He still isn’t convinced they aren’t going to lose the house, even if Harry’s tried to reassure him otherwise. He doesn’t even know if Harry’s still looking for work in the UK, or if everything’s still too shit for him to come home. Harry’s tried to talk about it a few times, but Louis has flat out refused to listen. He shops at Asda once a week and tries not to spend any money other than that, just in case. He’s started looking for night time jobs, hoping he can leave the kids with one of their sisters after dark and start pulling a little more of his weight.

Harry drags his knuckles across Louis’s cheek and drops a kiss to the junction between his ear and jaw. It’s so sweet and gentle and undeserved that Louis wants to cry a little. A lot. “Let me suck you,” Harry pleads. “Eat you out, anything. Just want to take care of you.”

Louis can’t even remember if he’s showered today or if he’s still in yesterday’s pants. He can’t remember the last time he trimmed his pubes. The low fuel light’s been on for far too long, fuck, he can’t even remember the last time he wanked. “Knock it the fuck off, I said no.”

Harry sighs again, rolling abruptly onto his back. “Fuck, Lou. I just… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push.”

Louis kicks out of his joggers and socks and crawls beneath the covers. He buries his face in his pillow, fighting down the emotion welling up inside him. “Well, you did.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says earnestly, reaching for Louis’s turned shoulder. It’s the sore one, the one that’s recently started sending blinding pain up his neck and into his head. He hasn’t know how to tell Harry that it’s gotten worse. “Hey. Look at me. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Louis insists, even if it isn’t, even if he can't face him. Their sex life is pretty much non-existent and Louis hates that Harry still wants it, despite how crap it’s been lately. He’d rather not fuck than be reminded how poorly they fit together right now, how much it hurts inside Louis’s chest when he lets Harry inside himself. “Maybe you should just get it from somewhere else already.”

The silence stretches for so long that Louis gets goosebumps. “ _What?_ ”

 _Fuck_. “Don’t— I just meant, you know. It works for Grimmy and Whoever-The-Fuck.”

“They’ve been together for four years,” Harry snaps, reaching across the nightstand to flick the bedside lamp on. The light burns Louis’s eyes; he squeezes his eyes shut against it. “You know Elgar’s name. What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“Forget it,” Louis sighs. He’s too tired to defend what he said or try to take it back. He’s too tired to pretend he didn’t mean it. “It was stupid.”

“Stupid,” Harry repeats darkly, driving home exactly how fucking _stupid_ Louis’s been to let the insides of his head leak out like this. “Did you seriously just tell me to fuck around on you?”

It’s not quite _fucking around_ if it’s consensual, at least that’s what Louis’s gleaned from Grimshaw’s self-indulgent monologues about his fancy progressive hipster open relationship with What’s-His-Name. “Forget I said anything, okay? Please. I just want to sleep.”

Harry sits up, his movements so jerky they make the bed shake. “What the _fuck_. We have kids, Louis.”

“Oh Jesus Christ, I know we fucking have kids.” Louis covers his face with his forearms, trying to shield his eyes from the glare of light and the idiocy of this conversation. “I’m sorry, okay? Forget I said anything.”

“That’s it, then? We have some shit sex and that’s it? I’m _trying_ , here.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, they are skating so close to this becoming irreparable. He doesn’t know how much longer they can hold this unraveling mess together. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, desperate for Harry to let this go. “I didn’t mean it. I’m just frustrated and tired and I wasn’t prepared for you to be here tonight. I haven’t showered. I don’t feel like being touched.”

“Can we just—” Harry sighs heavily. “It’s okay if you don’t want to be touched. You can just say that.”

He did fucking say that, in his defense, but it doesn’t seem like it would be the most helpful thing to point out right now. Harry doesn’t ever mean to hurt him; Louis doesn’t know how to tell him that it’s the only thing he ever does anymore. “I’m sorry.”

Harry lets out a slow breath and hisses, “ _Fuck_.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis says again, bracing himself for more exhausting displays of emotion. “I’m just really tired.”

“And I'm—” Harry stops himself suddenly, like he’s thought better of whatever he was about to say. The bed moves as he lies back down, his voice sounding closer than before when he settles behind Louis. “Look, _I’m_ sorry. Can you just come lie close to me, at least? I mean, can we cuddle? Is that okay?”

It feels a little bit being backed into a corner, but Louis can’t let this marriage fall apart on account of denied cuddles. He reaches across Harry to turn the lights off and press a chaste kiss to Harry’s lips. “Lie down,” he murmurs, swallowing down the inexplicable grief that fills his throat every time they’re close like this. “Turn over, you can be little spoon.”

Harry doesn’t hesitate for long, and when Louis pulls him into his arms, Harry links their fingers together and presses slow, soft kisses to Louis’s knuckles. “I’m so happy to be home,” he says, his breath warm and damp against Louis’s skin. Louis’s not going to be able to handle it if Harry cries right now. “It’s so hard being away for so long. I miss you all the time.”

Louis feels endlessly, bottomlessly horrible. He tightens his arms around Harry and tries to make him feel comforted. “Sleep, babe. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Love you,” Harry breathes, already dozing off. “Love you so much.”

“You too,” Louis says, trying his hardest to remember how, trying his hardest to mean it, trying his hardest to still fit against him.

 

—

 

Louis wakes in a haze sometime later, blindly sitting up to tend to the crying baby. A hand to his chest brings him back to the mattress, a voice soft in his ear promising that, “I’ll settle him, babe. Sleep.”

 _Harry_. Louis’s heart aches, knowing he’s here now and that soon he won’t be anymore.

Harry sings, _If you be my star, I’ll be your sky, you can hide underneath me and come out at night_ while he softly bounces a whimpering Jack in his arms. Louis generally just sings tuneless nonsense like _please for the love of god please sleep I’m so exhausted I am literally begging you to pass out right now_ , but Harry’s always been better than that. Harry’s always been better.

Louis used to watch Harry sing to a newborn Ava with tears in his eyes, overwhelmed by how much love his own heart could hold. She’s barely even two. It feels like so long ago.

He lets Harry’s sweet voice promising that, _you can skyrocket away from me and never come back if you find another galaxy far away_ coax him back into sleep. _Just leave me your stardust to remember you by._

 

—

 

Louis wakes unusually late the next morning, sunrise bright behind the curtains and his body heavy from a deep, exhausted sleep. Jack’s crib is empty, Harry gone from his side. The bed’s cold where he’s slept, but Louis can still smell him everywhere when he presses his face into Harry’s pillow. He runs his palm over the sheets, trying desperately to remember him. Harry’s been so far away for so long; Louis barely knows what to do with him anymore.

Missing him — _that,_ he remembers. He can’t remember anything else, sometimes.

The house is suspiciously spotless when Louis makes his way down the stairs, the clutter he’s been zigzagging past for weeks gone from floors and surfaces and shelves. The mountain of laundry that’s swallowed up half the sofa’s gone, the toys on the floor all packed into the plastic boxes by the TV, the empty bags of crisps cleared off the coffee table.

It looks like someone else’s house, clean and proper, like somewhere functioning adults might live. It smells like artificial pine and lemons and like breakfast cooking in the kitchen. Louis hesitates on his way there, knowing Harry can’t have done all this alone. He doesn’t have the energy to deal with people right now, especially not Grimshaw or any of Harry’s other clever, successful, put-together friends. It’s not that he doesn’t like them (Grimshaw excluded, but well, Louis has some valid _reasons_ for that dislike), he just can’t handle the way they make him feel like an even bigger mess than he already does by comparison.

He’s relieved to see Lottie and Gemma seated at the kitchen table. Harry’s cooking, Jack perched on one hip as he flips pancakes with a spatula. Ava’s on the floor between Gemma’s legs, playing with a toy truck and mumbling unintelligibly to herself. Lottie’s nursing a cup of tea in one of the too-big mugs Anne and Robin gave them for their housewarming years ago. They turn to Louis when he walks in, Jack gurgling as he turns a toothless smile at him, his little feet kicking happily against Harry’s hip.

There’s a bowl of chocolate-covered dates from Qatar on the kitchen table; Gemma’s favorites. Louis never opens the boxes Harry brings him anymore. They used to taste sweet in his mouth, rich and decadent like Harry’s kisses, now the mere sight of them turns his stomach.

“Morning,” he says, squinting a little against the bright light spilling in from the open curtains. Everything’s so clean and tidy and embarrassingly different from how it looked last night. “What time is it?”

“Just past ten,” Harry says, reaching for him. He lowers his voice like it’s just the two of them in the room. “Good morning, moon of my life.”

Louis flushes a little, resolutely not looking at their sisters as he gives their little boy a cuddle. “Not roleplaying _Game of Thrones_ with you at this hour, Khal Styles.”

“Tomlinson-Styles,” Harry corrects, getting a hand in Louis’s hair and bringing him in for a kiss. He tries to make Louis look at him. “Season one was showing on the flight last night. Sleep okay?”

Louis nods, pressing his forehead against Harry’s and closing his eyes. His stomach’s already hurting at the thought of him leaving again. It doesn’t ever stop hurting, not even a little, not even when he’s here. “Thanks for taking the kids this morning,” he whispers, everything in him raw like an exposed nerve. “And the house. _God._ ”

“Couldn't sleep.” Harry’s fist clenches in Louis’s hair, keeping him close. “Just wanted to look at our babies all night, can’t believe how big they’ve both gotten. Gem and Lottie helped tidy up a little.”

Louis takes a deep breath and then another and then another. He’s so, so tired.

“Our pleasure, babe,” Lottie says, clearing her throat and getting off her chair. She scoops Ava off the floor, making sure she doesn’t drop her toy. “Speaking of, Gem and I are taking the young’uns to the zoo this morning. Give you lovebirds some time to catch up.”

Louis’s stomach clenches guiltily as Harry disentangles himself and tends to a slightly burnt pancake. “Thanks,” he says, wrapping his arms around his torso and digging his nails into his biceps. He feels an inexplicable urge to cry again. “Appreciate it.”

His sister’s smile is soft and pitying. They don't talk about this, not really, but she comes ‘round enough that she gets it. Louis doesn't meet Gemma's eyes. She's sent a few gently concerned texts offering to mind the kids or bring a takeaway or just talk. Louis just hasn't known what to say in return, so he just hasn’t said anything.

It’s a production getting the kids dressed and into their car seats, ensuring the girls have enough toys and baby food to make it through the morning. He tells them which nappies to pick up at the shops while Harry puts breakfast on plates and lights candles. Something sweet and old comes on the stereo, something Louis remembers from a hazy night in the bedroom Harry shared with Grimshaw years ago. Louis hesitates for a moment in the hallway once they’re gone, wishing he’d showered and put on something other than worn track pants and an old, baggy shirt of Harry’s. Harry’s wearing a henley and skinny jeans, his long hair artfully tousled. He looks beautiful, like something expensive from a magazine, like something precious Louis can't afford.

It’s been almost seven years since Harry chose him over Nick. He could’ve had designer trousers and fancy dinner parties and Caribbean holidays and permission to fuck whoever he wanted, and instead he chose worn flannel sheets and watching _Game of Thrones_ on the sofa and monogamy and a mortgage with Louis. Louis’s never going to be sure Harry made the right choice; he’s never going to know if Harry is either.

Sometimes he suspects Nick looks at Harry’s life with Louis and thinks, _Shit mate, you settled for him when you could’ve had me?_ Sometimes he wants to punch Nick in his smug, stupid, moisturised face. Sometimes he thinks Nick would have a point.

“Delicious,” Louis says after biting into his first mouthful. The pancakes are fluffy like the ones they had on holiday in Canada years ago, the maple syrup sweet and rich on Louis’s tongue. They're not like the pancakes Louis's mom used to make, but they're still nice. “Thanks for doing all this.”

Harry’s smile is blinding as he pours Louis a glass of orange juice. It’s Louis’s favorite kind, heavy on the pulp and hard on the wallet; Harry must’ve asked one of the girls to bring it over. He reaches across to skate his fingertips across the back of Louis’s hand. His skin is so dark against Louis’s; Qatari sunshine against British gloom. “I’m just so happy to be home.”

“Happy to have you home,” Louis says, swallowing thickly. It feels like a lie, even if it isn’t. He is happy Harry’s home. He’s just sad, as well, doesn’t know how not to feel everything all at once. “I’m sorry about last night. I was just…”

Harry shakes his head and squeezes his hand. “No, I’m the one who should apologise. I didn’t mean to make you feel pressured or, like you had to— I mean, I don’t want anyone else. I’d rather not have sex with you than have sex with anyone else. Okay? I just want you. Just you.”

Louis forces himself to meet his eyes. “You sure? You could have a harem like a proper Khal.”

“I don’t want a harem,” Harry says, looking at Louis and not letting him look away. “Just my Khaleesi. That’s all I want.”

Louis sighs. “Why am I always the lady when we make pop culture references?”

“It’s those lovely hips.” Harry squeezes Louis’s hand again, too hard to be a cuddle, hard like he wants Louis to hear him. “I don’t want a harem. I don’t want what Nick and Elgar have, either. I just want you. Just you and our little nippers.”

Louis looks down at his pancakes, feeling horribly moved and horrible full stop. “Please stop going on about it.” A lady on the stereo overhead sings, _you and me, you and me, nobody baby but you and me._ Louis links his fingers with Harry’s and brings his knuckles close so he can press his lips against them. Harry’s fingers smell like maple syrup; Louis has a sudden, fleeting urge to get on his knees and lick them clean for him. “Sorry for being mental. I’m just so tired.”

“I know you’re tired,” Harry says gently. “I’m tired, too. We’re both really fucking tired.”

Louis doesn’t really think they’re operating under the same working definition of _tired_ , but he’s not going to argue. It’s been too fragile between them for too long. Harry’s trying, he’s clearly trying. He’s been up early to clean and cook and sweep all their problems under the rug. Louis takes a steadying breath. “Let’s just have a nice day, yeah?”

“The nicest,” Harry promises. “I’m taking you out.”

 

—

 

The nicest day Harry can think of involves standing in the shower together until the water runs lukewarm, Harry’s fingers in Louis’s hair as he rinses out conditioner and Harry’s arms around Louis’s shoulders as they stand quietly under the spray. Harry’s half-hard against Louis’s stomach, but Louis doesn’t reach down and Harry doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he presses his open mouth against Louis’s temple and whispers, “Love you so much,” over and over and over again.

It makes Louis’s stomach clench. He loves him back, he knows he does. He just doesn’t quite remember how to feel it right now.

They take the tube into the city. Harry takes him for a walk around Victoria Park and for lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese place tucked between a jeweler and a music shop. Harry inhales a bowl of _bun bo hue_ and Louis gets a cramp in his hand trying to eat _pho_ with chopsticks before giving up and requesting a fork. Harry tells a terrible joke about a prawn pulling a mussel at the seafood gym and holds Louis’s hand in the street afterwards.

It’s awkward like a first date, or maybe it’s just awkward. Maybe it’s awkward like the last date before one of them sits down and sighs heavily and says, _This really isn’t working anymore, is it?_

Harry pulls Louis close to take a selfie against a wall of grafitti, tucking his lips into the hollow of Louis’s cheek. Last time he was home he counted the bones in Louis’s ribs, his brow furrowed like he was concentrating. Louis made a joke about breastfeeding taking its toll, but Harry didn’t laugh.

They’re walking back to the tube when Harry says, apropos of nothing as far Louis can tell, “You feel different.”

Bad things coil tight, low in Louis’s stomach. “What do you mean?”

Harry stops under the orange sign reading _Hackney Central_ , a little to the side so they aren’t in people’s way. “It’s a little bit like… I don’t know. I’ve never seen you this unhappy.”

It’s on the tip of his tongue, quick like a defense mechanism — _I’m not unhappy_ — but there’s just no point. He doesn’t think Harry’s particularly happy either. “I don’t know what you want me to say to that.”

Harry looks like he’s going to say something for the longest time, something horrible and true that they can’t ever come back from. Then a harried traveler shoulders past him, knocking him off balance so Louis has to reach out to steady him. Louis briefly considers calling a few choice words after the wanker, but he just doesn’t have it in him right now. His tongue feels dry in his mouth, his heart heavy in his chest. He wants to plead with Harry, _Don’t say whatever you’re about to say._

Harry’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s just get home,” he says softly, taking a step into the station and pulling Louis with him. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

 

—

 

Louis fails to understand the reasoning process that led Harry to conclude that a barbecue at Nick’s was any sort of desirable surprise. He’s quiet in the car ride over, picking at the seam of his too-big skinny jeans and wishing he could’ve stayed at home. Harry’s wearing a blazer and long necklaces over a ridiculously patterned and barely buttoned shirt, looking golden brown and effortlessly handsome. 

Louis inexplicably couldn’t fit into any of his nice trousers, his pale legs swimming in every pair he tried on. Harry sat on the bed with Jack, watching while Louis turned their wardrobe inside out for something that wouldn’t hang off of him like someone else’s clothes. All he ever eats is crisps and toast and the occasional McDonalds, all he ever wears is baggy track pants and Harry’s old T-shirts. He doesn’t know where the weight’s gone.

Anne was at the house when they got back from the city earlier, her car parked in the driveway and her overnight bag in their hallway. She hugged Harry tight, tears in her eyes, saying, _my little boy’s finally home_ as though he wasn't about to fuck right off again. Harry cupped her face and wiped her tears and hugged her again and again and again. There was a furrow in her brow when she hugged Louis that he simply hasn’t let himself think too closely about. Harry’s mum is the closest thing Louis has to one of his own now, but it’s not the same. It can’t be.

Sometimes, in the wrong light, at the wrong time, Louis catches a glimpse of his own mother in Jack’s blue eyes and the immediate swell of grief knocks the air out of his lungs and sends him reeling. He never knows what to do with himself when it happens, other than to clutch at furniture and gasp for air until it feels less like he’s going to die. He hasn’t told Harry, wouldn’t even know how to. There isn’t anything he could do about it from over there, anyway.

“You can drink tonight if you want to,” Harry says when they stop at a red light on their way back into the city. He cracks his knuckles against the steering wheel. He’s got the Grease soundtrack on the stereo; it's pretty transparent, but at least he's trying. “I’ll drive home.”

There’s no way Louis’s equipped to spend more than twenty minutes in Grimshaw’s vicinity without reaching for spirits. Especially not today. “Thanks.”

The barbecue’s fired up in the back garden when they get there, drinks and food and people overflowing in Nick and Elgar’s posh, sprawling house. Nick’s wearing an apron bearing the words _BBQ King_ , but as far as Louis can tell he’s sipping cocktails with his girlfriends while Elgar and his mates man the grill. His face lights up when he sees Harry. “Henry Stars, is that you?”

“Nick Grimshaw,” Harry says, pulling Nick into a crushing hug. Nick’s knuckles go white around Harry’s shoulder. “Long time.”

“Too long,” Nick echoes, as though three weeks without Harry feel like years to him, too. His cheeks are a little pink, his eyes a little too soft. Louis knows all too well that a drunk Nick is an affectionate Nick, that he’ll hug and pet Harry like he has any right to touch him anymore, that Harry will let him like it’s no big deal, that Louis won’t say a fucking word about it no matter how much he hates it. It’s been years; Harry chose Louis and they all know it. Somehow the two of them have managed to stay mates despite the initial unpleasantness of it all, just mates. Best mates. Nick was Harry’s best man at their wedding. Louis doesn’t have any right to feel jealous. “Hardly bloody recognise you anymore.”

“Oh leave it off,” Harry says, rolling his eyes as he reaches into the next hug coming his way. Everyone’s so happy to see him; it breaks Louis’s heart how big of a hole Harry leaves behind in people's lives when he goes. “Pixie! Look at you, when did you get _this_ pregnant?”

Nick rolls his eyes and nudges Louis’s side. “It’s like he doesn’t understand how time works, honestly.”

Louis doesn’t laugh, realising belatedly that Nick made a joke. He moves his mouth in acknowledgement. “Right.”

Nick opens his arms to offer a hug; Louis doesn’t realise how tightly he’s crossed his own over his chest until he has to uncross them. “Y’alright?” Nick says, a little too cheerfully as he gives Louis a squeeze. “Thanks for coming ‘round. Help yourself to whatever you fancy, there’s some great cauliflower fritters over there if you’re peckish before the meat’s done. Your mates are by the fountain, I think.”

Louis frowns, turning towards the fountain — the fucking _fountain_ , for fuck’s sake, _wanker_ — to note that Stan, Oli and Calvin are sat together and looking out of place beside the peeing little boy statue. There’s dull discomfort in his chest where his delighted surprise should be. Oli’s the only one who lives in London, and they haven’t seen each other much since Harry started leaving. It's not like his friends haven't been in touch; Louis just hasn’t really had a lot of energy for a social life lately. Harry must’ve made some calls. Surprise.

“Alright?” he says, bumping his fist against each of theirs. They’ve never been big on hugs, not like Harry’s friends. Louis likes it better like this, likes that the only people that get to come that close to him are his kids and his siblings.

And Harry.

He glances over at him, sees him surrounded by people who know and love and miss him while he's away. Nick drapes an arm over Harry’s shoulder and presses a beverage into his hands, taking up space beside him like he has any right to. Harry turns his head to search out Louis’s eyes, raising his glass to him in a toast.

Louis forces a smile in return and gives him a thumbs up. He hopes it looks more convincing than it feels.

Stan nudges him with his elbow and offers him the end of his cigarette with a raised eyebrow. “Y’look like shit, mate. Developed a heroin habit we don’t know about?”

“Might’ve,” Louis says, taking the fag between two fingers and taking a deep drag. Harry’s always hated when he smokes, but he doesn’t have it in him to curb the craving right now. He smirks at Oli and Calvin, bringing his hand up to stage whisper, “At least I’m not balding.”

Stan gasps in mock horror, tousling his hair back over where it’s barely begun thinning. “This wanker, the fucking nerve.”

Oli hands him a beer and gives his back a friendly pat that lasts a little longer than Louis expected it to. “Good to see you, brother. Been a while.”

Louis nods, biting down on the inside of his lips. He’s strangely nervous that they’ve come all this way to see him, that he probably won’t have anything interesting to say to them. “Little while, yeah.”

It ends up being alright though, the four of them catching up as they knock back beers and smoke fags and eat hamburgers without any of the fancy hipster trimmings available. Louis feels a little unsettled by how their lives seem to all have moved on while his own has stood still, how they’ve changed jobs and gotten new girlfriends and traveled to exciting, faraway places. He used to keep up with them on Facebook, but he just hasn't had the attention span for much beyond endless episodes of the Teletubbies and crap late night telly and waiting for Skype to ring.

He gets drunker than he intended, but in his defense he’s so knackered that it doesn’t take much. It’s a relief, the way it lowers his shoulders and makes his mouth loose enough to smile without much effort. Harry brings him juice and inexplicably talks outdoor survival skills with Oli and Calvin while Louis leans heavily against his side. Nick’s boyfriend tries to talk footie with them, but Louis’s too out of it to pay much attention to his very wrong estimations about Liverpool’s chances this season. Lottie drops in on her way to a nightclub, towering tipsily over him in sky high heels while she tells him over and over again that he’s the best brother anyone could’ve asked for.

There’s a moment where Louis turns his head and meets Harry’s eyes and desire stirs _everywhere_ inside him. It’s a bit of a shock, how it reminds him so suddenly and so vividly how good and right and perfect Harry used to feel buried deep inside him.

When it’s time to leave, that heavy pressure in his chest has eased off a little. Harry holds the car door open as Louis tries to coordinate his limbs into some semblance of order and then helps him get his seat belt fastened. Louis leans his head against the passenger seat window once the engine starts, watching the city lights flicker across his husband’s skin and feeling the shards of his heart ricochet inside himself. He knows Harry knows he’s watching.

 _I really do love you,_ Louis thinks desperately. _I do, I do, I do. I just don’t know if it’s enough._

Louis holds on to the staircase railing and tries to stay upright while Harry helps him take off his coat and trainers. He’s probably going to need to throw up soon, but right now, all he wants is to take his husband’s clothes off and get so close to him that he forgets he’s ever been anywhere else. It’s been so long since he crashed into Harry and didn’t walk away bruised. He wants it, wants it, wants it. Wants _him,_ deep and hard and like he used to. For the first time in a long time, he fucking _remembers_.

It knocks the breath out of Harry’s lungs when Louis tackles him against the wall, past his lips and into Louis’s waiting mouth. He tastes like orange juice and peanuts and home, his lips dry against Louis’s as he whispers, “ _Lou_.”

“ _Haz,_ ” Lou echoes desperately, mashing their lips together. He presses wet, greedy, messy, open-mouthed kisses to Harry’s mouth and chin as he reaches down to clumsily undo his belt and zipper. He can’t slow down or think too closely about what he’s doing, or it might all fall apart. “Harry.”

Harry hisses, rocking into his touch when Louis gets a hand inside his pants. He’s already deliciously swollen in Louis’s hand, always such an easy mark. His hands clench around Louis’s biceps. “What’re you doing?”

“It hasn’t been that long,” Louis murmurs, sinking his teeth into Harry’s bottom lip and drawing a moan from Harry’s lips. “I thought you might remember. Want you to fuck me.”

Harry’s cock jumps in Louis’s hand, but he turns his head to the side. “You're really drunk.”

“So?” Louis brings Harry's hand down to cup his own groin. He feels brazen and reckless, on fire, almost sexy. He kisses him again, hard and wet and insistent. “I'm also really hard.”

Harry clears his throat, twisting away again. “Kind of hard.”

Louis winces, the flush of humiliation immediate and jarring. He used to get hard at the drop of a hat for Harry, lately he's not even been able to get it up for porn and his own hand. “Your dirty talk needs work,” he quips, trying desperately to sound coy and unashamed and like Harry isn’t already hurting him before this has even begun. He pushes Harry back against the wall, forcefully like he means it. “Want you inside me.”

“Hey, whoa. _Hey._ ” Harry stops him from dropping to his knees with a firm hand under his armpit. “I don't think this is a good idea.”

Louis jerks back, stumbling over his discarded shoes and barely managing to stay upright. His face feels hot. “Isn't this what you've been begging for?” he snaps, the tender grasp he had on the situation slipping. “I want your dick in my arse. I fucking want you. Take advantage while it’s still on offer.”

Harry recoils like he’s been slapped, his face twisted into something shocked and ugly. Louis almost wishes he’d struck him, just to shift some of the distress inside of himself out of his own body and make Harry feel even an inch of what’s been festering inside Louis. That tightness is coiling in his chest again, his lungs closing in on themselves in that bad way that makes it feel like he’ll die. “Lou,” Harry whispers, glancing up the hallway where their kids and Harry’s mother are sleeping. ”You're just drunk. You don't want me, not really.”

It sobers him like a bucket of cold water. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t...” Harry runs his hands through his hair, messing it up. He looks like he’s going to cry. Louis wants to shove him against the wall, hurt him back somehow. He has no right to fucking cry on top of everything else. “I don’t know what’s up with you right now, but you’re not… you’re not _you_ right now.”

Louis doesn’t even know how to begin explaining how wrong Harry is. Louis’s never felt more _himself_ than he has these last few months, everything in his head amplified in the silence Harry left behind, everything inside him empty and ugly and rotten and loud and inescapable. “I’m just tired.”

“This isn’t just _tired_.” Harry shakes his head. “It doesn’t even feel like you love me anymore.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Louis spits, reeling as though he’s been caught in a lie. He hasn’t, it’s not, that’s— It’s just complicated right now. “This is not about me. This is about you fucking off to the other side of the world and leaving me completely fucking alone with these demon children who never stop crying and screaming and needing more than I can give. You told me you would take care of us, that I could quit my job and we could have kids and a house and a life together, that everything would be okay. You fucking lied to me.”

Louis’s name catches in Harry’s throat, rough and wet. He says it again. He says, “I’m trying. I need you to hold on a little while longer.”

“No,” he argues. He’s been so tired for so long, teetering on the brink of complete collapse. He can’t handle him leaving again, can’t handle another month of waiting and wanting and Harry coming back all wrong. He’s been stretched too thin for too long, it’s a mystery that he hasn’t broken yet. “I can’t. You’re never coming home and I’m sick of waiting for you. It’s not gonna be okay. I don’t believe you anymore.”

“Lou,” Harry begs, reaching for him. There are tears in his eyes, wet and blurry and infuriating. “Lou, please.”

Louis twists away from him, shaking his head. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

Harry holds his gaze for a long moment, his face pink and damp and devastating. Louis feels the bile rising in his throat, his pulse hammering in his ears, their future warping and distorting into something impossible and unrecognisable in front of them. He can’t do this anymore. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t. It’s not enough, it’s not enough.

“I love you,” Louis says, fingering his wedding ring with clammy fingers, “but at this point, I think I probably hate you more.”

“ _Lou_.” Harry sounds desperate, but there’s nothing left inside Louis where his empathy should be. He’s angry and disappointed and just so, so, so _tired_. “ _Lou_.”

Louis shakes his head. “I hate you so much I don’t think I know how to love you anymore.”

It seems to take Harry a few moments to really hear it, and then he pushes off the wall and does his flies and belt back up with slow, imprecise movements. He wipes his face on the sleeve of his shirt and takes a deep, sniffling breath. “I think I’m gonna give you a bit of space.”

“Leave.” It’s out of Louis’s mouth before he can stop himself. His hands are shaking. He’s about to violently unravel any moment. “It’s all you ever do, isn’t it? Fucking leave, go.”

“I’ve been trying to come home,” Harry hisses, his voice breaking with it. “I’ve been killing myself trying to come home.”

“Maybe you shouldn't bother anymore,” Louis says, his mouth moving before his brain’s caught up. It sounds cold, loud, cruel, like someone else's voice. “Maybe you shouldn’t ever have bothered. Go ahead, leave. I’m sure Nick would still have you.”

Harry stares at him like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. Louis has been carefully keeping certain things inside of his head for a long fucking time, but he doesn’t have the energy to hold them in anymore. “ _What?_ ”

“You have my blessing,” Louis says. “I’m sure he’s a better fuck than me, anyway.”

“Fuck, Lou.” Harry shakes his head, his jaw working like he’s biting back words. He grabs the car keys off the hook on the wall. He sounds livid. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

The sight of Harry’s retreating back hits Louis like a punch to the stomach. “Fucking leave already,” he shouts, trying desperately to hold himself together as panic explodes in his body. “Get out.”

Harry’s hand hesitates on the door handle, his head bowing for a heartbroken moment as everything in Louis’s head screams, _no, wait, no, that’s not what I meant, please don’t leave me._ Louis’s heart slams against his rib cage, beating itself to a bloody pulp against his bones like it’s trying to burst out of his chest. The door shuts behind Harry with a quiet click.

Louis hears the engine starting, the car reversing out of the driveway, the tires disappearing down the road, and then a silence so loud it resonates in Louis’s ears like the aftermath of a gunshot. He feels the carpet soft under his hands before he realises his knees have given out, hears the choking gasps before he realises his lungs have closed up, hears his mother’s voice before he understands he’s going to actually, properly die this time.

He curls in on himself, digging his nails into the carpet on the floor as he tries desperately to fill his rioting lungs. His throat cramps around nothing, gasping turning to heaving before he’s coughing up sick. The room spins like a rogue merry go round, vertigo warping everything as he clutches at the floor for leverage. It feels like ages before he feels hands on his shoulders, a voice that isn’t his mother’s after all saying, “Breathe, love, breathe. You’re okay.”

 _Anne._ He’s not dying. He’s not dying. He’s not dying. “I’m fine,” he lies, sitting up and out of the pool of vomit. His arms are shaking, his elbows buckling as he tries to hold himself up. He tries not to flinch when she wraps her arms around his shoulders. “Sorry.”

“Just keep breathing,” she says again, rocking him gently back and forth like he’s a fussy child. “Just big slow breaths for now, love.”

“Can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Can’t.”

“Just try. I’m right here, everything’s going to be okay.”

He tries and tries and tries, gasping until something eventually gives, until the cacophony in his head dulls gradually to an exhausted hum, until he’s so dizzy and exhausted that he feels like he’s floating in her arms, until he’s doubled over and sobbing weakly into his knees. “I’m sorry,” he says again, wiping ineffectually at the dampness on his face. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” Anne says gently, brushing his fringe out of his face and helping him sit back up. “Let’s get you to bed, okay?”

“The kids—”

“—are both asleep,” Anne finishes, helping him get to his feet. His knees feel weak, wrong, like they’re not quite connected to his body. His hands feel like someone else’s hands. He’s so, so dizzy and sore. “I’ll keep watching them so you can get some sleep. You need to get some proper sleep.”

“I need to—”

“Nonsense.” Anne bodily leads him into his bedroom and helps him into bed, holding the covers up so he can crawl beneath them. “The only thing you need is to sleep. I’ll get you some water.”

He kicks out of his undone skinny jeans while the tap turns on in the bathroom. There’s a wet spot on his shirt, but he doesn’t have it in him to look for another one. He rolls onto Harry’s side and covers his face with his forearms. He’s so, so dizzy. He’s going to be sick again any minute.

The bed dips when she sits beside him, setting off another spark of vertigo. She gently moves his hands and presses a cold, wet flannel against his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says again, but she’s hushing him before he’s even had a chance to finish. “I’m such a fuck up.”

“You’re not that, at all.” She brushes his hair off his forehead and presses the cold flannel firmly against his aching head again. “I’m sorry, love. I don’t think any of us had realised exactly how hard it’s been for you lately.”

“Such a fuck up,” Louis insists, needing her to understand. He can’t even process whatever she’s apologising for. “He left. I made him leave.”

“He’ll come back.”

“I don’t know,” Louis says, bracing himself against how everything in his chest tightens at the thought that maybe he can’t, anymore. Maybe Louis's finally ruined everything. Maybe it was just a matter of time. “Just tired. So tired. Sorry.”

“Shhhh,” she says again. “You’ve been so strong for so long. It’s okay to be tired.”

“My mum had seven of us,” Louis mutters, swallowing against how his throat closes up at the memory. He takes a deep, steadying breath, trying to get himself under control again. “She never got tired like this.”

Anne sighs heavily, linking her fingers with his and squeezing tight. “People get tired in all sorts of ways,” she says gently. “You’re doing the best you can. Your mum was so incredibly proud of you. _I’m_ proud of you.”

It’s not the same, it can’t be, but Louis closes his eyes and selfishly tries to believe her. She strokes his hair and sits with him until the noise settles in his head, until he falls into a deep, exhausted, dreamless sleep. It's been too long since someone touched him like this and it didn't just hurt.

 

—

 

Nick answers the front door in his pajamas the next morning, looking sleep-mussed, unsurprised and distinctly unimpressed to find Louis on his doorstep. He leans against the doorjamb, seemingly deliberating for a long moment before deciding to step aside and let Louis in. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Louis takes a few cautious steps into the living room, looking around. He’s not sure what he’d been expecting — a balled up quilt on the sofa, a pile of Kleenex on the coffee table, maybe Harry’s clothes strewn haphazardly in the direction of Nick’s bedroom. He doesn’t know what to make of anything anymore. He follows Nick into his confrontingly bright, spotless kitchen. It’s almost as though he didn’t have thirty people over last night. “He’s not picking up my calls.”

“I wouldn’t either, to be honest,” Nick says coldly, not looking at Louis as he flicks the kettle on and bungs some bread in the toaster. “You were a right twat to him last night.”

Louis’s blood runs cold. “He told you.”

Nick chews his bottom lip, leaning back against his kitchen counter while bread toasts and water boils. Louis can’t shake the feeling that he’s gloating. _See? I’m still the first person he goes running to, even after all this time, you absolute utter fuck up._ “Of course he told me,” he says after a long, horrible moment. “I’m his best mate.”

Louis bristles. “Don’t remind me.”

Nick rolls his eyes, turning to pour two cups of tea and spreading butter and jam onto slices of toast. Louis stands frozen, watching him. He should ask where Harry is, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Maybe he’s sleeping still, maybe he’s washing Nick’s sweat off of himself, maybe he’s already left the country again. Louis doesn’t know what sort of a mess he’s made of his marriage after last night, all he can think is _they don’t like fight like this, raising voices and walking away and saying things they can’t take back_. “How do you take your tea?”

Louis frowns, watching Nick push a plate of toast towards him. The butter/jam ratio is all wrong and the jam’s some hipster shade of green, probably fair trade and organic and unnecessarily expensive. “I’m not having breakfast with you.”

Nick puts almond milk and a bowl of what looks like (but probably isn’t) sugar on the counter beside the tea he’s brewed for Louis. “I won’t make you,” he concedes, “but what the fuck, Louis? He was _inconsolable_ last night. I’ve never seen him so upset in my entire life. You need to get your fucking act together.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do with him. He isn’t yours anymore.”

Nick takes a deep breath and purses his lips like he’s gearing up to throw a proper strop. “God, Lou,” he mutters. “He chose you, okay? I begged him to stay, and he still chose you. He could’ve had me, and I would’ve let him fuck whoever he wanted, and it would’ve been easy and fun and good, and he still _chose you_ , your shit communication skills and your temper tantrums and your crap self-esteem. He chose you, and he _still_ chooses you. I’m as baffled as you are, but there you go.”

“Maybe you’re overestimating how great you are.”

Nick arches an eyebrow, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “I’m a fucking catch, Louis Tomlinson. I’m great in bed and I can poach an egg like nobody’s business and I have the emotional maturity of a fucking saint. Harry had it really good with me, I’ll have you know, but he’s never looked at me like he looks at you. Never, not once, and believe me, I wanted him to. For his sanity, if nothing else. But there was never any competition. I know it, he knows it, and yet I cannot for the life of me understand why you don’t know it.”

Louis doesn’t know how to respond to anything Nick’s just said, except to clear his throat and say, “Tomlinson-Styles.”

“Yeah,” Nick says, throwing his hands up as though that proves his point. “Exactly.”

Louis swallows against the shame tightening his throat. “Is he still asleep?”

“He’s not here anymore,” Nick says, rummaging around one of the kitchen cabinets until he recovers a little blue cardboard box. “He spent the night at his sister’s. Didn’t want you to get the wrong idea, since apparently you’re still threatened by something that’s been not been a thing for a very long time.”

Louis swallows guiltily, looking at the box of painkillers Nick slides towards him. “What’s this for?”

“Hangover,” Nick says, surprisingly gently. When Louis looks up, his brow is furrowed with what looks suspiciously like concern. He glances down at Louis’s crossed arms, back up to his face. “You look unwell, Lou. Really, really unwell.”

“Had a bit too much last night.”

“I noticed. Not what I meant, though.”

Louis looks away. “It’s the—”

“Breastfeeding, right. He told me you’d said that. It’s a good joke.”

Nick isn’t laughing, though. Louis looks down at the piece of toast on the counter in front of him. It looks impossibly large, like it would tire out his jaw trying to break it apart. “My health is none of your business either.”

He takes the pills though, pops two into his hand and swallows them dry.

“Elgar sees a therapist sometimes,” Nick volunteers, as though that’s any of Louis’s business. “It’s not a big deal. Sometimes he just gets low for no reason and we have to make sure we look after him extra well, make sure he’s sleeping enough and can take some time off work if he needs it. There’s no shame in that.”

Louis bites down on his tongue. “Don’t.”

Nick ignores him. “It doesn’t mean he’s weak or bad, or anything. Sometimes brains get a little poorly when you’ve been under a lot of stress. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Don’t do that.” Louis shakes his head. “Don’t talk to me like you know me.”

Nick doesn’t back down. “I’ve known you for quite a while now, and I’ve never known you to be this much of an insecure, miserable twat. I’ve never seen my best friend this fucking heartbroken. He genuinely thinks you don’t love him anymore.”

 _No, no, no._ Louis presses the heel of his hands into his eye sockets and takes a deep, steadying breath. He’s so, so, so tired. He’s the fucking worst. Harry’s the one who should’ve fallen out of love with him.

“I felt that way with Elgar sometimes,” Nick presses on, still so gentle, like Louis’s something fragile that could break or something scared that could run away. “In the beginning, before we understood how to deal with his depressive episodes.”

Nick says _depressive episodes_ like it’s just another set of words, the same way he says stupid posh words like _appletini_ or _scented candle_ or _salad fork_ , like there’s nothing wankerish about them. “There’s nothing wrong with my brain, I’m just—”

“Tired,” Nick finishes gently, beating him to it. “The cracks are showing, pet, and they’re not pretty.”

Louis takes a cautious gulp of tea. It’s bitter and lukewarm and unsatisfying, but he doesn’t think almond milk or fake sugar would make it any better. The silence is interrupted by the front door opening and closing, a clink of keys against a porcelain bowl, one shoe and then another hitting the floor. The two dogs come running, crashing into the kitchen counters in their haste to get to Nick.

“Morning,” Elgar calls on his way into the kitchen. His brown cheeks are tinged a faint pink, his biceps bulging in a damp polyester shirt and earbuds dangling from around his neck. He smiles when he sees Louis, easy and kind and unaccusing, like Louis’s husband slash Nick’s ex-boyfriend wasn’t on their couch crying last night because of him. Like Louis hasn’t been a bit of a shit to him every time they’ve met, based on his association with Nick alone. “Louis, how are ya mate?”

“Good,” Louis says softly, guiltily. “Thanks.”

Nick leans in like a sunflower towards the sun, smiling against Elgar’s mouth when their lips meet. “Good run?”

“Not bad.” Elgar squeezes his arm and reaches past him to fill a glass of water from the tap. “They’ve finally started knocking down that derelict disaster on the corner by the cake shop.”

“About time,” Nick says, absent-mindedly petting the white dog climbing his leg. “Thought they’d wait ‘til it fell down on its own and took the cake shop with it at this rate. Want some breakie?”

“Can’t have that, where would you get your daily chocolate eclairs fix?” Elgar smirks, stealing a bite off of Nick’s plate and dodging the swat Nick sends his way with practiced ease.

“It’s not daily,” Nick argues, with all the conviction of someone who clearly has a cheeky eclair on a daily basis. “Go bathe, you brute. I’ll fix you some toast and a little protein shake.”

Elgar obeys with a smirk, jogging up the stairs two at a time. Louis catches sight of that godawful Liverpool tattoo on his leg and wonders whether Elgar says the words _depressive episodes_ with the same ease as Nick.

“He’s nice,” Louis tries once the bathroom door’s shut behind him. He has no idea how not to be a dick to Nick, but for once he thinks he might try.

“Yeah, dead nice,” Nick agrees, frowning in apparent confusion. “Love of my life, and all that.”

 _Right._ Louis had always kind of assumed Harry had been, but for all the softness in Nick’s eyes when he sees Harry, he’s never looked at Harry the way he just looked at Elgar. Not that Louis’s seen, at least, and Harry was still Nick’s the first few times they met.

Louis wonders how he looks at Harry, if the way he looks at him has changed the past few months, if Harry’s noticed. Harry used to look at him like he hung the moon, but lately Louis’s been more or less avoiding eye contact with him. Harry looks directly into the camera sometimes when they Skype, his green eyes serious and searching, but Louis hasn’t known how to meet them for a while.

“This jealousy thing,” Nick says gently. “It’s cute, it’s flattering, but it’s not real.”

Louis puts his tea down. “I should get home.”

Nick’s face does a thing, something soft and sad that Louis doesn’t want to face. “Just sort your shit out with Harold, yeah? He's barely been keeping it together over there as it is, stop breaking his heart when you don’t need to. And for fuck’s sake, eat something.”

 

—

 

Louis lets himself into the house as quietly as he can. Harry’s boots are in the hallway, his jacket draped neatly over the coat rack, his key chain hung on the hook by the door. He still hasn’t returned any of Louis’s calls. Louis hangs his own keys beside Harry’s and fingers the photo dangling from Harry’s. It’s the four of them from another time, newborn Jack asleep on Harry’s chest and Louis’s head thrown back in laughter as Ava bites his chin.

There’s a faint but unmistakable stain on the carpet leading up the hall, a cloud-shaped reminder of the mess Louis made of everything last night. It was covered with some sort of white powder when he snuck out this morning, salt or flour or something like that. Anne must have taken care of it after he’d fallen asleep last night, the way mums seem to inexplicably know how to take care of everything.

He’d woken to a note on his nightstand, girly cursive on the back of an envelope. _Do whatever you need to do for yourself in the morning, I’ll mind the kids for as long as you need. xx A_. He’d thrown up again, just once, his folded legs shaking beneath him on the cold bathroom tiles, and then he’d pulled one of Harry’s old T-shirts on and booked an Uber.

“Daddy Lou!” Ava calls as soon as she sees him, jumping off the floor and storming towards him on unsteady legs. He kneels down to catch her, nearly toppling at the impact. “Nana farted!”

Louis raises a questioning eyebrow at Anne, who’s looking mildly embarrassed beside Ava’s toy train set. “Just a little one,” she says, kneeing closer to tickle Ava’s side. “I thought you weren’t going to tell on me, little miss?”

“Ooops,” Ava says, cheekily covering her mouth and feigning contrition as she tries to twist away from the tickles. Louis knows that little face though, can see the mischief in it from miles away. She’s _his_ daughter, after all. “Forgot.”

Louis laughs, squeezing her close in his arms. He _loves_ her, loves her and her brother like he never thought he could love anyone else in the world. She was his first little love, the tiny scrap of joy that burst into his and Harry’s life two years ago and turned everything upside down. She’s the reason he’s gotten to watch his Harry grow into a father, someone even kinder and stronger and more resilient than the already perfect boy he married years ago. She’s the reason Louis started looking at himself in the mirror and thinking, _you really, truly matter to someone_. He suspects she’s also the main reason he keeps catching strands of silver in his hair.

He’s been terrified of failing her every single day since she was born, but it isn’t until the last few months he’s grown convinced that he already has. Jack isn’t even a year old yet and Louis’s convinced he’s been failing him for most of his life.

He’s been failing everyone since Harry left: his friends, his siblings, his kids, Harry. He just doesn’t know how to be good enough. He’s so, so tired of trying to be good enough.

Harry had been devastated when he’d first lost his job in London, pouring over their credit card debt and mortgage repayments and trying to find a way to make it all add up. He hadn’t taken the job in Qatar until the envelopes started coming in with big, red, angry _OVERDUE_ stamps on the side. That last night before Harry flew out for the first time, they’d watched _Game of Thrones_ until dawn broke, kissing and whispering and tracing each other’s tattoos. Louis had held him close at the airport and whispered, “Return to me, my sun and stars.” 

Harry had pressed a kiss to Louis temple and promised, “Until the sun rises in West and sets in the East, until the rivers run dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves.”

Gemma had made rather unattractive gagging noises behind them, but Harry had held Louis’s face in his hands and pressed his lips so hard against Louis’s that he’d momentarily forgotten to breathe. Harry’s kisses have always left him so beautifully breathless.

Anne nudges his knee, her voice gentle as she asks, “How are you, love?”

Louis can’t remember exactly how loud they were in the hallway last night before she turned up, but he suspects she _probably_ heard Louis lose his temper because her son wouldn’t fuck him and _definitely_ heard him shouting for Harry to get the fuck out and go back to his ex-boyfriend. He doesn’t know what Harry’s told her since he came home this morning, but it can’t possibly have been all that flattering.

“Been better,” Louis admits, ducking his hair to nuzzle his little girl’s curls. She’s picking at his shirt, tracing the lines of color in the _Dark Side of The Moon_ artwork with her tiny fingers. He can’t bring himself to look Anne in the eye. “Look, about last night, I. Uh. It was not my finest moment.”

Anne sighs, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “You’re doing the best you can,” she says. It’s a little awkward with Ava between them, a lot kinder than Louis deserves. “The last few months have been so hard on you both, don’t make it worse by being hard on yourself as well. I’m sure you did the best you could.”

Louis’s face flushes. She must have heard. “I said the _worst_ things to him. I just lost it.”

“You were upset and you used the best words you could think of to explain why. You just have to hope he heard what you meant to say.”

Louis swallows thickly, forcing himself to meet her gaze. For the millionth time, he wishes he still had a mum of his own to run to for advice and comfort and kindness. Anne is brilliant and lovely and good to him, but at the end of the day she’s always going to be Harry’s first, and there’s always going to be a hole in Louis’s life that nothing else can fill. He hands Ava over before he can let that thought take proper hold. “Where is he?”

“Upstairs, putting Jack down for a nap.”

Louis nods, getting himself off the floor. He’s halfway up the stairs when he hears him, Harry’s hoarse voice singing, _“If you be my boat, I’ll be your sea,”_ from behind a shut door. Louis’s heart feels heavy in his chest as he makes his way up the stairs and into their bedroom, his knees buckling under the weight of it.

The curtains are drawn, Harry cradling Jack’s tiny blanket-wrapped body against his chest as he sings against his temple. He meets Louis’s gaze as the door shuts behind him. _“But you can set sail to the west if you want to, past the horizon, ‘til I can’t even see you, far from here, where the beaches are wide. Just leave me your wake to remember you by.”_

Harry’s always been so much better, better with the kids and better at life and better than Louis could ever deserve. Louis leans against the door, watching Harry lower their sleeping son into his crib and carefully tucking him in. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Harry says, his voice rough like he’s spent the night crying over his fuckwit of a husband on his ex-lover’s sofa. “Where’ve you been?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Louis digs his hands into the pockets of his track suit bottoms so Harry won’t see how hard they’re shaking. “I’m here now.”

Harry leans back against the crib, his jaw set. “We need to talk.”

They’ve needed to talk for a very long time, but Louis’s been too paralysed and overwhelmed and exhausted to know what to say or how to say it. He still doesn’t know what to say or how to say it. “Yeah.”

A tendon jumps in Harry’s cheek. “How long have you been getting panic attacks?”

Louis flinches at how casually Harry can say those words, like they aren’t the most horrifying thing Louis’s ever experienced, like he isn’t convinced he’s dying every single time. He wraps a hand around his elbow, pulling his arm tight against his stomach to hold himself together. “Few months, give or take.”

Harry’s face crumples. “Jesus, Lou. How could you keep this from me?”

The answer is somewhere between _I didn’t want you to know how weak I’ve become_ and _I worried that someone would take the kids from us_ , but Louis can’t quite bring himself to say either. It’s all so fucked up inside of his head, he can’t bring himself to show Harry just how badly. “There wasn’t anything you could do from over there, anyway.”

“I could have—” Harry cuts himself off with a choked breath, pressing his knuckles against his eyes. It breaks Louis, right in the rotten centre of him, but he stands frozen against the door, unable to move. He doesn’t know if Harry would want him to console him, if Louis even could. “I could have done _something_. I could have— fuck, Lou, you look sick. You’re skin and bones. You’re so fucking sad.”

Louis raises his stiff shoulders in a shrug. The left one’s aching in a bad way again, despite the painkillers. “I’m just really, really tired.”

“I know you’re tired,” Harry says, wiping at his eyes. “I’m tired. Being away from you and the babies is the most exhausting thing I’ve done in my entire fucking life. But you’re not… Lou, something’s really wrong here.”

Louis sucks his head, unable to face him for this. _Everything’s_ wrong, wronger than it’s ever been. “You’ve always known I was a fuck up, you can’t possibly be that surprised.”

“You’re not a fucking—” Harry starts harshly, then stops to take a deep breath. He lets it out shakily and slumps back against the crib. “I haven’t been here for you the way I should have, I didn’t even know—. You have every right to hate me.”

The bottom falls out of Louis’s stomach. He takes a seat on the edge of their bed, trying to steady himself. All this noise has been festering inside his head for so long; he should have known it would come out all fucked up and wrong. “I don’t hate you,” he whispers. “I don’t know why I said that.”

Harry clears his throat. He’s wiping at his eyes again. “It’s okay if you do.”

“I don’t,” Louis insists, pleading. He doesn’t know how to say, _I’m sorry._ If he starts apologising now, he won’t be able to stop. “I couldn’t.”

Harry doesn’t quite look like he believes him, but he doesn’t argue. “I’ve given notice,” he says. “This morning. I’m coming home as soon as they’ll let me.”

Louis hates the bittersweet twist of shame and relief in his chest. He’s wanted Harry to come home for so long, but not like this, not because Louis’s dropped the ball and fucked up and ruined everything. “You’re overreacting.”

“I’m not,” Harry argues, frowning deeply, “but I wouldn’t really care if I was. You and the kids are the most important thing in my life, if you’re not okay — if _we’re_ not okay — then nothing else really matters.”

Louis looks down at his hands in his lap, the part of his thumbnail that’s gone a little yellow from chain smoking last night. He’s so very, very, very _not okay_. He wonders if Nick said those _words_ to Harry last night, if he’s told Harry what it’s like to love someone whose brain just breaks when things get too hard, if he said, _you love him more than you ever loved me, go home_.

“I don’t want Nick.”

“I know.”

“I don’t,” Harry repeats. “Not even a little, not at all. It’s just you.” His voice is shaking, proper _shaking_ , when he asks, “Do you still want me to come home?”

Louis bites down on his tongue. “I don’t know if I’m any sort of home for you to come back to anymore. I’m just a fucking mess.”

“Fuck, Lou, you’re not a—” Harry cuts himself off, his breath coming in short, staccato bursts. “Do you still want me to come home?”

The break in Harry’s voice tears through Louis’s chest like something sharp. He looks up, meeting Harry’s wet, devastating eyes. It shouldn’t be a hard question to answer, just like it shouldn’t be so hard sometimes to remember that he loves him. It shouldn’t have been too hard to tell Harry about his panic attacks or his bum shoulder or how he’s completely lost his appetite or how he’s been too tired to shower or dress or leave the house lately, but everything in his head has been so fucked up and different for the last few months and he hasn’t known how to make sense of any of it. “It’s all so completely fucked up,” he admits. “ I don’t know how to stop it.”

Harry drops to his knees in front of him, reaching out. “It’s just been hard lately. It’s just been hard the last few months.”

“ _Too_ hard,” Louis argues, crossing his elbows in front of his face and curling in on himself. He doesn’t know why he’s not crying, the pressure inside him so intense that he doesn’t understand why it’s not bursting out of him. “I can’t take anymore. Everything about you hurts all the time, I don’t know how to stop it.”

“You don’t have to, I’m coming home.” Harry crowds him, pulling his arms off his face, cupping his jaw, breathing against his mouth. “Please, please, please. Let me come home.”

Louis shakes his head, struggling against his hold. “It’s too hard. It’s too fucking hard, I can’t handle anymore, I can’t, it’s too much.”

“You don’t have to,” Harry says again, a note of desperation to his voice as he tries to lower Louis's arms. “I’m coming home, we’re gonna get you some help and I’m going to feed you and I’m going to love you so hard that you forget you ever hated me.”

Louis shakes his head again, unable to explain in any other way how _tired_ he’s been for so, so long. He just wants to sleep for a thousand years and wake up in a world where he’s not a fucking disaster of a human being, where calls to his mum’s mobile don’t go to a disconnected number, where the love of his life isn’t a pixelated face far, far away.

“Please,” Harry pleads, wrapping his arms around Louis’s torso and pressing his face into Louis’s shoulder. His voice is muffled against Louis’s chest. “Please let me come home. Let me fix this.”

Louis sighs, slowly bringing his arms in to fold around Harry. He’s shaking in Louis’s arms, his breath coming in little wet gasps. Louis cards his fingers gingerly through Harry’s curls, trying to remember how to do this. It’s been so long since he touched Harry and didn’t walk away aching, so long since holding him made of think of anything but the inevitability of having to let go. He slips his fingertips down to rub at the nape of his neck, tentatively pulling him closer. Harry sighs in response, his arms relaxing around Louis. Louis drops his face to the top of Harry’s head, breathing in the smell of him. Christ, he’s missed him so much. Missed him and missed him and missed him, even when he’s been here. He’s so tired of missing him. “Harry.”

“I’m coming home.”

Louis wants to believe him, wants to think he still can. He makes a fist in Harry’s hair. “Haz. Look at me.”

Harry tilts his head up, his eyes pleading and soft and lost. Louis holds his face in his hands, rubbing his thumbs over the damp crow’s feet at the sides of his beautiful eyes. He feels it like a glimpse of blue sky, _love_ shining through the storm clouds inside his head. He hears Nick saying, _he’s never looked at me like he looks at you._ He thinks about this gangly boy he met on a dance floor under neon strobe lights years and years ago, this boy who took him into his lover’s bed and looked at him like he’d hung everything in the fucking universe. He tries to _remember_.

Harry sucks his own bottom lip into his mouth, his brow furrowed deeply as his eyes flit between Louis’s eyes and his mouth. He looks so heartbreakingly beautiful, so hopelessly lost, so wholeheartedly Louis’s that Louis has to kiss him.

Harry’s lips are dry, hesitant, unsure against Louis’s. It’s awkward like a first kiss, noses bumping, Louis’s tongue butting against Harry’s teeth and everything salty like tears. It’s awkward like two mouths who don’t remember how to move against each other anymore, who’re so desperate to remember that they’re stumbling over themselves trying to get there.

Harry jerks back when their teeth clack painfully, but Louis tightens his grip on his face. “Kiss me,” he pleads, squeezing his knees against the sides of Harry’s body to keep him there. “Try again.”

The exhale that leaves Harry’s mouth is sleep-stale and familiar, like he’s not brushed his teeth yet this morning. He brings his own hands up to cover Louis’s, linking their fingers against his own flushed cheeks. “Want to,” he whispers, pressing his forehead against Louis’s. “Want to more than anything.”

“My sun and stars,” Louis whispers.

Something like a sob catches in Harry’s throat, wet and breathless. “I don’t remember my lines, Lou.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Louis kisses him again, forcing Harry’s mouth open with teeth and tongue and lips. He lets go of Harry’s hands and wraps his own low on Harry’s back, pulling him flush against himself, bracketing the solid weight of him between his spread legs. He wipes carefully at the wet on his cheeks. “Just stop leaving me.”

He lowers his mouth to Harry’s again, closing his eyes as he licks his way back inside. It’s been so long since he had this and it didn’t hurt. Harry’s fingers dig into Louis’s thighs, hard enough to bruise maybe, just over his knees. He’s breathing hard into Louis’s mouth, and Louis knows he must be getting hard by how he pulls his hips back. Always such an easy mark.

Louis reaches for Harry’s hand before he loses his nerve, pressing it between his own legs.

Harry breaks their kiss, looking down between them. Louis’s not really hard yet, but it feels like he could maybe get there with a bit of encouragement. “Don’t say anything,” Louis pleads, his cheeks burning with it. “Just… _please_.”

Harry swallows, holding so still, his eyes searching Louis’s. “We don’t have to.”

“Please.” Louis cants his hips up, feeling a sweet stirring low in his belly at the pressure. “Come on. Don’t… don’t get weird about it. Just touch me.”

Harry’s hand moves a little, cautiously cupping him through the worn polyester of his track suit bottoms. It feels.... okay. “How… how?”

“Don’t care,” Louis whispers, pulling his shirt over his head and pushing his trousers and pants off of his scrawny legs. Harry just looks at him, entirely still. Louis fights the urge to avert his eyes, to cover himself up, to apologise for his malfunctioning dick. “Just touch me.”

Harry leans his forehead against Louis’s, his mouth open against Louis’s as he slowly strokes his hands over Louis’s thighs and sides and arms. Louis squeezes his eyes shut, holding onto Harry’s shoulder as Harry touches him everywhere except where Louis thought he would. It’s been so long since they did this and it didn’t hurt; he just wants to remember. He lies down gingerly, trying to pull Harry on top of him, but Harry doesn’t follow.

He lies down beside him instead, pulling a blanket off the floor and over Louis’s shoulders. “I think— I think now’s not the best time for that. Jack’ll be up in a minute, mum’s just downstairs.”

Louis swallows thickly, curling up under the blanket. There are other reasons there that Harry isn’t naming, but they probably don’t need to go into them now. “Are we going to lose the house if you come home?”

“No,” Harry promises, his fingers soft in Louis’s hair. “I’d never let that happen, I know what this house means to you.”

Louis lets out a shuddering breath. This house had been everything he’d ever wanted once upon a time, with its old white window frames and polished floorboards, a fireplace in the living room and a bay window in the master bedroom. Their first night here, they’d fucked on the living room floor, tangled in sleeping bags and drunk on cheap red wine and so desperately in love.

Then they'd started dreaming about tiny little feet padding on the floorboards and Harry had done what he needed to do to bring Ava into the world. Louis still doesn’t know how much they paid for the first surrogacy, only that Harry had applied for a promotion and they’d borrowed some money off Harry’s mum. It had been greedy to wish for Jack so soon after Ava, but they’d been driving back from Donny after putting Louis’s mum in the ground, and Louis had been so fucking desperate for _anything_ to fill the gaping hole in his life that he hadn’t cared.

Louis’s never going to forgive himself for how greedy he’s been, how he’s asked more of Harry than they could afford, how he’s just taken and taken and taken, how he can’t even handle all the good things Harry’s given him without falling to a million pieces without him.

“I’m going back to work,” Louis says, hoping it’s not too late. “I’ll start pulling more of my weight.”

“God, Lou.” Harry sighs. “You need some rest, some proper serious rest.”

“I can’t let you do all the work anymore.”

“You’re not— raising our kids for us while I'm away is more work than I've ever done in my entire life.”

“It doesn't really pay.”

“Fuck the money, it's just money. Mum wants to let her house for a while, come stay with us, help us out a little.”

“We can’t ask your mum for that.”

“Yes, we can. She’s our family and she wants to. She offered.”

“Because she thinks I’m a mental case?”

“Because she loves us. Because she’s been lonely up there after…” Harry goes suddenly, horribly quiet. Louis knows the grief is still there for him, even if he never wants to talk about it, even if he thinks he doesn’t have a right to when Louis never talks about his mum. He clears his throat. “She’d like to be closer to us and Gemma, I think. I think it would make things a bit easier for her, too.”

Louis thinks about the relentless drives to Cheshire every time Harry’s home, how she cries at every hello or goodbye, how the crow's feet around her eyes seem so much deeper than they’ve ever been. Louis’s been too caught up in his own grief to really appreciate that they’ve lost someone, too.

He doesn't know how to talk to Harry about any of this. He doesn't know how to talk to _anyone_ about any of it.

“What if you come home and we don’t make sense anymore?”

Harry shakes his head. “I can’t even begin to understand why you feel that way, Lou, but I swear it’s not true. You and me are the best thing in the fucking world, you and me and our little nippers. It’s just been hard lately. It’s just been hard the last few months.”

 _Too hard,_ Louis thinks again. He doesn’t know if there’s any way to fix the things that have broken. “I want to believe you, but I don’t know if I can.”

“Let me come home, Lou. Let me take care of you until you believe again.”

Louis meets his eyes. They’re green, dark, bottomless. They’re looking at him like they still believe he’s hung everything in the night sky. They’re looking at him like Harry hasn’t forgotten, even if Louis can’t quite remember.

Harry kisses him again, soft and careful and desperate, kisses him until their kisses are salty with what Louis suspects aren't only Harry's tears for once, until Harry's holding Louis’s shaking shoulders against his own. He holds Louis close, his fingers digging into the sorest spot of Louis’s bum shoulder until the pain lessens the slightest bit. 

 

—

 

The text message comes before the Terminal 4 arrivals screen has even updated to say that flight BA7009 from Doha has landed, _HERE xx_.

Louis looks around the terminal again, suspecting he probably has time to get another cuppa, but not wanting to lose his place by the wall. All morning he’s been watching people come out of those gates, scanning the room excitedly for someone they love and reaching into crushing, exhilarated hugs. All morning he's fingered a folded sheet of A4 paper in his hands, the edges going damp in his clammy hands as he's debated whether or not to bin it. 

He could still bin it.

All morning he’s thought, _not mine, not mine, not mine_ as strangers went past him, as his phone buzzed with messages that weren’t from Harry. His GP confirming his appointment next week, Elgar texting him about where they're watching the footie this weekend, Gemma sending him snapchats of Anne and the kids at the park, Lottie asking how much wine to get for Harry’s welcome home dinner, Oli updating him on this girl he’s “definitely not dating,” yet probably most definitely is.

Louis’s started thinking of the guest room as Anne’s room, with how she’s unpacked three suitcases in there and hung pictures on the walls. The first few weeks, she made dinner and did the laundry and watched the kids while Louis slept off the worst of the exhaustion. This week Louis made them lasagna on Monday and got them takeaway curries on Wednesday. Some nights they share a bottle of wine and watch murder mysteries until it’s quiet and warm and dark, and then Anne lets Louis talk for as long as he wants. Sometimes he talks about his mum, just a little, and she tells him stories about Robin that have her laughing through the tears.

Some nights he sits up with Harry on Skype, talking and looking at him and trying to work out whatever happens next. Some nights he reaches carefully into his pants while Harry talks, some nights he falls asleep with Harry still talking to him. Some nights it all feels too fragile still, awkward and stilted, and then some nights it’s almost like it used to be. Some nights they have new kinds of conversations that they’ve never had before, and Louis says words that make him shake all over, and Harry listens like they're just words, like they don't scare him at all, like it's all going to be okay. 

His heartbeat picks up when he starts seeing shopping bags with the gold and blue Qatar Duty Free logo on the side. He puts one hand on his belly, taking those deep belly breaths he’s been learning to do when he feels his pulse start to run away with him. _Return to me_ , he thinks, nervously fingering the paper in his hands. _Come home, come home, come home._

He could still bin it. It's stupid. He could get another cuppa and bin it on the way. It's so, so stupid. 

But then, like answered prayer, Harry strides through the doors with his leather bag slung over his shoulder and his hair pushed back with sunglasses. He looks like a movie star, golden brown and beautiful as he scans the room for the briefest of moments before landing on Louis. He doesn’t take his eyes off him as he crosses the arrivals area, muttering distracted apologies to every person he carelessly bumps into on his way. 

For once, Louis’s heart doesn’t ram itself against the bones inside his chest at the mere sight of him, like it knows better than to break itself over a boy who was always going to come back to him, like there's still something left inside him for Harry to come home to. 

He hesitates for the briefest moment before opening the folded piece of paper with shaking hands. It says _Khal Tomlinson-Styles_ with a badly drawn sun and a smatter of stars around it. Ava helped him glue the stars on this morning while Anne held Jack’s tiny hands and helped him waddle around the living room on his clumsy little feet.

“Fuck,” Harry mutters, a mere moment before bringing him into a bruising, beautiful kiss. It makes Louis feel breathless, warm and dizzy and so, so overwhelmed. It’s desperate like a first kiss, like the one they shared on Louis's doorstep the night he broke up with Nick, like the one they shared when Harry went down on one knee in front of him, like the start of something new and full of possibility. Harry briefly pulls back to press his forehead against Louis’s and whisper, “Until the sun rises in the West and sets in the East, until the rivers run dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves.”

Louis laughs, crushing the paper against Harry’s side. He's shaking like a leaf, but Harry's holding him steady. “You practiced that, you wanker.”

“Moon of my life.” Harry cups his face and kisses Louis’s smile over and over and over again. “Take me home.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr post](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/post/163652501964/fic-youre-a-universe)
> 
> Title from [”Without” by Years & Years](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32u6MP-yZqk). Other songs mentioned: [”Unravel” by Björk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgBbJKiRxmc), [”You And Me” by Penny & The Quarters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8rumyup0Os) and [”Boats and Birds” by Gregory & The Hawk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRPyoPGO2vo).
> 
> [tumblr](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/jiksax) | [email](mailto:ifckfairies@gmail.com?Subject=Hey%20girl)  
> 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] You're a Universe | written by Jiksa](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675687) by [Tipsy_Kitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsy_Kitty/pseuds/Tipsy_Kitty)




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